26 January 2012

Graham Cake

If you can't bake (or like to try out something different), why not try making a Graham Cake? So called because it uses Graham crackers, this refrigerator cake requires no cooking. Easy to make with a yummy result!

This cake uses fruits as part of the filling. A popular choice is mangoes. In the Philippines, we have some of the tastiest mangoes in the world so the Graham cake is an excellent choice there. Mangoes are not as abundant (and not as affordable) here unfortunately, so I have to make use of canned fruits. In this case I chose mangoes and peaches.

Ingredients:

1 pack (around 30 pieces) Graham crackers. On second thought, buy another pack to make sure you have enough.
Crushed grahams (you may also buy extra Graham crackers and crush these)
1 can mango pieces, drained and sliced thinly
1 can peach pieces, drained and sliced thinly
3 x 250ml all-purpose cream, chilled. Make sure this is chilled (half hour or more in the ref) or you'll have a watery mixture. We used reduced cream because that's what we had but all-purpose cream is better.
1 x 250ml condensed milk. The ratio between cream and condensed milk is 1:1/3
rectangular dish to build the cake

Procedure:
Thoroughly mix the cream and condensed milk.

Cover the bottom of the rectangular dish with a layer of Graham crackers. You may cut smaller portions to fit. As you can see, I simply used the crushed grahams to cover the sides because I had lots of these. My wife told me later on that it's better to have cut smaller pieces instead because the crushed graham will be all over the place when you cut the cake. Use this only to fill-in gaps. She was right. So don't use crushed grahams as I did and cut up cracker portions as needed.

Spread a layer of cream-milk mixture, followed by fruit pieces.

I learned my lesson on the second layer of crackers. Yay!

Repeat the cream-sliced fruit-crackers layers until you reach the top of the dish, or you run out of ingredients, whichever comes first.

The top can simply have a layer of cream on it along with some fruit, or you can also sprinkle a thin layer of crushed Graham.